Minimal

An excellent, crystal-clear recording of some of the finest pieces in the so-called minimalist genre, Minimal Tendencies features work by Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Gavin Bryars, and Michael Nyman. All pieces but one are performed with four saxophones, whether originally scored for them or not. An excerpt from Glass' Mishima film score appears here, originally scored for string quartet. Reich's "New York Counterpoint" was originally scored for clarinets and tape.

No Age - Minimal Kidds (1989) {Capitol–Intuition CDP 7 46879 2}
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© 1989 Capitol / Intuition | CDP 7 46879 2
Jazz / Contemporary Jazz / Chamber Jazz / Modern Creative

Although this is technically a group effort, it has the stamp of the precocious Gebhard Ullmann, who wrote and arranged all the pieces and is featured extensively on reeds and flutes. At the heart of the recording is the trio of Ullmann; Andreas Willers on guitars; and Nikolaus Schäuble on percussion, supplemented by others including Glen Moore on bass and Trilok Gurtu on percussion, and samples from a children's choir. Recorded early in Ullmann's career, the talented composer, improviser, and organizer focused his efforts on so-called world music, and the album is less radical and adventurous than his later works.

There's perhaps a touch of irony in the title of Dutch pianist and composer Jeroen van Veen's box set Minimal Piano Collection because at nine discs, it's a pretty massive collection. The program booklet notes that he recorded the entire set, which includes more than ten hours of music, in only six days, an astounding feat. In the program notes, van Veen offers a remarkably clear and concise history of minimalism in music. He defines it broadly enough (following the lead of composer and critic Tom Johnson) to include works by Friedrich Nietzsche and Satie. Philip Glass is the composer most widely represented, with three of the set's nine CDs devoted to his music originally for piano, as well as transcriptions from his film scores and operas. Two discs are given to van Veen's mammoth 24 Préludes, organized according to the framework of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. Other composers range from the very well known, such as Michael Nyman, John Adams, Terry Riley, Arvo Pärt, and John Cage, to the familiar-to-specialists, like Tom Johnson, Wim Mertens, and Jacob ter Veldhuis, to those little-known to American audiences, like Klaas de Vries, Simeon ten Holt, John Borstlap, Yann Tiersen, and Carlos Micháns.

TRANSITS: Minimal to Mayhem, his fifth full Navona Records release, is an abridged sequence of five works from a set time and concrete place that maps composer Sergio Cervetti's creative progression over four decades of composing. Written in 2013, Concertino for piano, woodwinds and timpani is a rowdy and raucous array of South American rhythms tempered by a tender quote from Gustav Mahler's Kindertotenlieder.